One of the things that I really enjoy about creating mixes and podcasts is that I get to go through the crates and pick out tunes I don’t usually get to play out much. Some of my most favorite tracks are those slower soul love jams that just melt you away with every listen, but end up taking a back seat to something more uptempo for the party. The next mix is a compilation of just that…15 bangin’ soul love songs from the vinyl vault, which make up the second installment in the ‘Tough Love‘ series.

A big Shout to Boule at Consortium Distributions and Brian C for being dude. If you’re in the Montreal area, CD quality versions of ‘Tough Love 2′ are being given away with purchases at the Consortium Pop-Up Shop on St. Laurent until the month’s end. Grab’em before they’re gone.

Welcome to the new home of DJJun.com!! I’ve joined forces with my man Sawtay once again to develop Invisible-Friends.com, which is a community based site that hosts DJ Jun, CR8APES, DJ Sawtay, Adrian Hayles and Behind the Front Visual Art Studio. We’ve been working hard trying to get this new site up and running and will be adding plenty of new mixes and content in the near future so we hope you enjoy it and come back often.

To kick things off at the new site, I present to you the next installment of Reggae Love; Part III. I’ve had many requests for this ever since Part II dropped in 2008, and what better time to drop a reggae mix than the start of summer. Seen? So expect to hear some of my favorite deep Roots, dubbed out Disco mixes, early Dancehall and chilled out Reggae Soul chunes all recorded from original vinyl straight out of the vault. Love Reggae? Reggae Love for rills.

If you haven’t already, please subscribe to my podcast to be automatically notified of new mixes and upcoming events. This podcast link is different from the previous one at the old site so please make sure you have it updated. Also, if you like what you hear or want more information on songs or artists, feel free to use the new comments section or email me at djjun(at)invisible-friends.com. Thanks for stopping by the new site.

Life has been keeping me insanely busy these days but I finally made some time to go through the crates and put together a new mix. I dropped the needle on Soundway’s latest Little Francisco Greaves’ Panamanian 45 and the mix flowed from there, all the way to Africa and back again to the Americas. ‘Sesión de Alma’ is a tropical funk, latin jazz and soul session designed to keep you warm in these long wintery months.

Thanks again to all those that came out to the ice skating party for the Cavalcade of Lights at Toronto’s Nathan Philips Square on Saturday, December 5th. Jully Black put on a great show, the fireworks were incredible and the rink was packed. The full set of photos by my friend Melissa Moffat can be found here at melissamoffatphotography.blogspot.com

Continuing on where ‘Connecting Flight’ left off, this next mix dives deeper into Jamaican ska and shows its transformation into the slower and more relaxed Rocksteady beat. ‘Rude Boy Ruckus’ mixes together tunes from 1963 to 1967 when this significant change occurred and paved way for Reggae music as we know and love today. Expect to hear some uptempo Ska scorchers and chilled out Rocksteady classics. Enjoy the mix.

I’ve put a mix together that breaks down the genre barrier and connects music from, in this case, 8 countries from 4 different continents. ‘Connecting Flight’ mixes together funk, salsa, bossa funk, brazilian & ska tunes from countries such as Germany, Panama, Nigeria and St. Lucia in a way that, hopefully, you don’t even realize that you’ve just travelled through 4 continents in just under 50 minutes. I hope you have as much fun listening to it as I had making it.

A BIG shout out to DJ Double K of Parkdale Funk who has kindly offered to post the ‘Connecting Flight’ mix as Part 1 of his ‘Toronto Funk Series’ and to give me the opportunity to share some music with his readers. If you haven’t already, make sure you go and check out his wicked website with enough podcasts to keep you busy til next year. The man knows his funk & Soul, and better yet…he’s willing to share it.

Summer has been crazy busy so far, but I’ve finally got around to putting up a new mix for those summer bbqs and long road trips. ‘Brazilian Wax’ is a collection of rare and classic Brazilian funk, samba soul and bossa grooves from yesterday and today.